{"id":1351,"date":"2011-12-20T08:49:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T13:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2011-12-21T11:19:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T16:19:42","slug":"edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html","title":{"rendered":"EDWIN DICKINSON: BACK FROM THE DEAD"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre><\/pre>\n<div id=\"attachment_1358\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/fosselhunters\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1358\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1358\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1358\" title=\"The Fossil Hunters, Edwin Dickinson\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/fosselhunters.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"591\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/fosselhunters.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/fosselhunters-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/fosselhunters-380x500.jpg 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1358\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Edwin Dickinson, The Fossil Hunters. Not on view at the Whitney.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Can artworks survive once they have fallen out of fashion? Or no longer inspire further art? Are off the grid? Are not part of the ongoing dialogue, but come across, if at all, as dead ends? As orphans, bachelors, old maids?<\/p>\n<p>Roberto Matta (1911-2002) at Pace to Jan. 28, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) at MoMA to May 14, and Francis Picabia (1897-1953) at Michael Werner to Jan. 14 were each at one point vital to the art life, so probably deserve a new look.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Artist\u2019s Artist, the Painter\u2019s Painter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But Edwin Dickinson? When was he central? He didn\u2019t fit into American Scene painting or Modernism. He was not a Dadaist, a Cubist, \u00a0or a Surrealist. Although he was briefly saved from starvation by the Works Progress Administration\u2019s easel-painting subsidy, he did not produce overt socially conscious art. He certainly never tackled murals. On the other hand, his art was just too strange to be considered academic. Maybe too poetic?<\/p>\n<p>The way art history has been written, he has no heirs. That needs to change. Different times require different views of the past. And different family trees.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson(1891-1978) is well-worth looking at and thinking about. There are lessons to be learned, particularly if you yourself are that rare thing, a true oddball, lone wolf, keeper of your own secrets, priest or priestess of art rather than of career.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/frances-foley\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1369\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1369\" title=\"Frances Foley by Edwin Dickinson\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/frances-Foley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"479\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/frances-Foley.jpg 479w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/frances-Foley-239x300.jpg 239w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/frances-Foley-399x500.jpg 399w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\n<dl id=\"attachment_1369\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 489px;\">\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">\u00a0Dickinson, <em>Frances Foley<\/em>, 1927. Courtesy Babcock Gallery.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Three Strikes and You Are Out<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Babcock Gallery (774 Fifth Ave., to Jan. 22) is now offering \u201cEdwin Dickinson in Retrospect.\u201d All three faces of Dickinson are sampled: the lovely <em>premier coups<\/em> (some of them pre-de Kooning action paintings); hints of what went on in his big paintings, but only hints; and the self-portraits.<\/p>\n<p>The \u00a0<em>premier coups<\/em> or first strikes are masterful. This method simply requires that mistakes be jettisoned right there on the spot. Doesn\u2019t look right in front of the subject? Scrape it down! The results range from delicate to dynamic.<\/p>\n<p>This comes right out of the Munich tradition. The difference is that Dickinson did not treat his first strikes as outdoor sketches, meant to be used in larger, finished works, but offered them as finished works themselves. They are raw, special. You participate. You not only feel where he was standing in front of his subject and at what angle he was viewing it, but you can identify his movements in applying pigment.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, the \u00a0\u201cmachines,\u201d or what curator Douglas Dreishpoon and Pollock-expert (!) Francis O\u2019Connor in separate essays persist in calling the \u201csymbolical\u201d paintings in the catalog for \u201cEdwin Dickinson: Dreams and Realities\u201d (Albright-Knox,Buffalo, 2002), are diabolical.<\/p>\n<p>Symbolical as opposed to symbolic, or like the Symbolical Rites of the Masons? Dickinson\u2019s masteful <em>The Fossil Hunters<\/em> might have been painted by a modern-day El Greco in a severe fit of depression.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/locusts-jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1378\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1378\" title=\"Locusts.jpg.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Locusts.jpg..jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Locusts.jpg..jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Locusts.jpg.-300x258.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\n<dl id=\"attachment_1378\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 360px;\">\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Dickinson: Locusts Woods and Grass, Truro, 1934. Courtesy Babcock Gallery<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first strikes are about the known, what we can see with our eyes and can jot down with our paint rags, palette knives, and little pinkies (one of Dickinson\u2019s favorite outdoor tools). Here is Dickinson\u2019s philosophy:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you do not bring anticipations to the sight of an object when drawing it, anticipations which are connect with associations in your lay life, it is easier to get it right then to get it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The machines or the subject paintings or the \u201cwinter paintings\u201d done entirely in the studio were also not preplanned, according to Dickinson. He just went ahead. They are about what we cannot know. The angle of vision is either too high or too low; one object blocks another or turns it into a splinter or shard. Bodies are cadavers. And the light is always dimmer than twilight. Stygian. Faces are in shadows or otherwise blurred and incomplete.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1387\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/cello\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1387\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1387\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1387\" title=\"Cello\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Cello.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Cello.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Cello-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1387\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, The Cello Player, 1924-26. De Young Musuem.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Big Ones: My List of Dickinson Machines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Interior,<\/em> 1916.<\/p>\n<p><em>An Anniversary,<\/em> 1929-21. Albright-Knox,Buffalo,NY<\/p>\n<p><em>The Cello Player<\/em> 1924-26. De Young Museum, \u00a0San Francisco.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">[Dickinson\u2019s list of depictions: \u201c14 books; two potatoes; 2 saucers; 3 sheets of music [Intermezzo from Cavalieria\u00a0 Rusticana, violin allegro from Marriage of Figaro]; 2 china pitchers; 7 shells; 1 photograph; 1 trilobite; 3 kettles; 1 rose; 1 music stand; 1 chair; 1 organ; 1 piano, 1 cello&#8230;.John Cordes&#8230;..\u201d Cordes was the model for the cello-player. Dickinson, who did not read music, played the cello by ear.]<\/p>\n<p><em>The Fossil Hunters<\/em>, 1926-28.\u00a0Whitney Museum of Art.<\/p>\n<p><em>Woodland Scene<\/em>, 1929-1935.<\/p>\n<p><em>Composition with Still Life<\/em>, 1933-37. \u00a0Museum of Modern Art.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ruin at Daphne<\/em>, 1943-53. Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">[His last \u201cmachine,\u201d the depiction of a made-up archeological site, evincing too much red pigment for my taste, took 10 years and was never finished, or only \u201cfinished\u201d when it was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and thus left his studio.]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1399\" style=\"width: 217px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/ananniverlg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1399\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1399\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1399\" title=\"ananniverlg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/ananniverlg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"207\" height=\"244\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1399\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, An Anniversary, Albright-Knox.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Masterpieces Gone Missing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At Babcock, the closest thing to one of the \u201cwinter paintings\u201d \u00a0is \u00a0<em>Francis Foley<\/em> (1927), only 50 by 40 inches, but exhibiting the silvery tonalities and skewed perspectives of the big works. And the fabric. A must-see. And the first-strike paintings are also worth braving jolly Christmasy midtown Manhattan. \u00a0<em>Self-Portrait in Uniform<\/em> of 1942 (it\u2019s a Civil War getup) is also special, self-portraits being his third specialty, developed in the second half of his life. They too are destabilized. Are they vain or introspective?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1390\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/dickinson_self-portrait-in-uniform_l-3\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1390\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1390\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1390\" title=\"Dickinson_SELF PORTRAIT IN UNIFORM_l\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_SELF-PORTRAIT-IN-UNIFORM_l2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_SELF-PORTRAIT-IN-UNIFORM_l2.jpg 430w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_SELF-PORTRAIT-IN-UNIFORM_l2-300x249.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, Self-Portrait in Uniform, 1942. Courtesy Babcock Gallery<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the survey now at the Brooklyn Museum called \u201cYouth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties\u201d (to Jan. 29), you can see Dickinson\u2019s \u00a0<em>Helen Souza<\/em>, 1929, which, although hardly one of his \u201cbig ones,\u201d is twilight gray, utilizes a surprising perspective and point of view, and is a startling exercise in surface, texture, and varied paint-application. Is it unfinished? What is the struggle that it embodies? Plastic or psychological, or both?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1391\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/helen-souzafixed\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1391\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1391\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1391\" title=\"Helen Souzafixed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Helen-Souzafixed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"529\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Helen-Souzafixed.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Helen-Souzafixed-255x300.jpg 255w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Helen-Souzafixed-425x500.jpg 425w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1391\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, Helen Souza, 1929.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Alas, neither MoMA, the Whitney, nor the Metropolitan have any of their once very popular Dickinson\u201csubject paintings\u201d on display right now. They are &#8212; dreaded term &#8212; in storage.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1392\" style=\"width: 338px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/dickinson\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1392\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1392\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1392\" title=\"dickinson\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dickinson-328x500.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"328\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dickinson-328x500.jpg 328w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dickinson-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/dickinson.jpg 504w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 328px) 100vw, 328px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson painting outdoors in Provincetown, n.d. Courtesy Provincetown Art Associaion.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>He Was Not a Hermit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whatever happened to Dickinson? Although he eventually moved to New York, he is associated with Provincetown, Massachusetts. Too New England. Furthermore, in the battle between Provincetown and Woodstock to become the summer art capital, East Hamptonwon. Dickinson lived in P-town and later in nearby Wellfleet year-round. However, let us not think Dickinson was unsociable because he spent 14 bone-chilling Cape Cod winters in uninsulated studios making art.<\/p>\n<p>From his spare diaries we learn how disciplined he was. Up early, out on the beach, then scraping paint in whatever draughty workspace he could afford. But he also keeps track of a full social life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">Still feeling ill \u2013 up late painted myself AM.. PM painted eve home&#8230;..AM painted \u2013 PM painted. Eve saw Manon. Rec\u2019d valentine scarf from Tibi. Bright moonlight on snow. Cold&#8230;AM in &amp; out \u2013 walk on dunes. Wretched day. PM worked at office. eve at Tibi\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>The early death of his long-suffering mother from tuberculosis and the suicide of his older brother were anniversaries dutifully noted each year in the pages of his day book, with never a comment. Just there, like winter, like ice.<\/p>\n<p>His definition of art was \u201csomething that moves the spirit through the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked about his influences, he replied: \u201cI suppose being alive and awake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When queried about the meaning of his art, he replied: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1398\" style=\"width: 256px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/beach\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1398\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1398\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1398\" title=\"beach\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/beach.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"246\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1398\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, Laboratory Beach, 1935. Private Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dickinsonwas the last of the art line that goes from the Munich School to William Morris Hunt, William Merritt Chase and Charles Hawthorne. Dickinson studied with both Chase and Hawthorne, the latter when he had an art school in Provincetown.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, he was also one of the last of the independent artists.<\/p>\n<p>He was accustomed to the largesse of juried exhibitions and exposed his art that way, as did many others before the advent of the full-fledged gallery system. For long stretches he was \u2018\u201dcommercially unaffiliated\u201d and seemed not to have minded. Although he had shown at the then prestigious Carnegie Institute, the Albright-Knox, and the American Academy of Art., his first solo exhibition in a commercial art gallery was in 1936 on 57th Street in New York at the young age of 45.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After 1942, he went without a gallery until 1961. Of course, he was nicely represented in curator Dorothy Miller\u2019s MoMA show \u201cRomantic Painting in America\u201d in 1942 and again in her \u201c15 Americans\u201d of 1952 (along with Rothko, Still, Pollock, and Bradley Walker Tomlin). When asked to submit an artist\u2019s statement, he submitted a self-portrait.<\/p>\n<p>Elaine de Kooning\u2019s \u201cEdwin Dickinson Paints a Picture\u201d (<em>Ruin at Daphne<\/em>) appeared in Art News in 1949. She wrote that he was \u201cA great artist [who] reconciles poetry with perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was not invisible.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, he saw nothing wrong in teaching. From various accounts, his students at Cooper Union and the Art Students League were in awe of him, but appreciated that his critiques were strictly one-on-one. He treated students as if they were fellow artists. Here&#8217;s an interview with painter<a href=\"http:\/\/paintingperceptions.com\/contemporary-realism\/interview-with-george-nick-part-one-on-edwin-dickinson\"> George Nick<\/a>, a former student.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps he should have stayed in Provincetown or Wellfleet and froze to death. Perhaps he should have walked out to the tip of the Cape Cod curl and just waded into the icy brine to join his beloved brother in the afterlife, leaving behind his wife and two children to go it alone. His brother in the \u201820s had leapt from a sixth-floor window in Greenwich Village, almost in front of his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>When economic necessity forced Dickinson and family to move to New York City, where there were more teaching jobs, he clearly did not have the time or energy to paint more of his large paintings. Francis V. O\u2019Connor, in the big Buffalo tome mentioned above, offers more than enough intuitive psychoanalysis in his essay, \u201cAllegories of Pathos and Perspective in the Symbolical Paintings and Self-Portraits of Edwin Dickinson.\u201d Once Dickinson was safely married, his oedipal conflicts were resolved. His father could be forgiven at last for marrying so soon after the first Mrs. Dickinson\u2019s death. Of course, no more \u201cwinter paintings\u201d were in the offing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/ruinnew\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1414\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1414\" title=\"ruinnew\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/ruinnew.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"238\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\n<dl id=\"attachment_1414\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 310px;\">\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Dickinson, Ruin at Daphne, 1943-53. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not on view.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>An Unfinished Life<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The story of Dickenson\u2019s life has not much to it; but his art does. Sometimes the large paintings were cut down into smaller paintings. Sometimes just abandoned. He told arts writer Katherine Kuh:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 120px;\">None of the large paintings is really finished. there comes a time when I stop because to go on would mean reorganizing the canvas from the bottom up. I can\u2019t throw away the investment of so many years &#8212; nine years in the case of <em>Ruin at Daphne<\/em>. So I make the best of a bad job by finishing them as well as I can. In other words, they all topple over when they are about three-fifths done.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>So like<\/em> Willem de Kooning!<\/p>\n<p>In fact he and de Kooning, 13 years his junior, became friends. Dickinson, the elegantly bearded art teacher, valorized spontaneity <em>and <\/em>indecision or struggle, which may have influenced the younger man. Certainly, as Elaine de Kooning (who introduced them) might have predicted, there was a resonance between the two.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, to see some paintings by each side-by-side!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1402\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/dickinson_nude-figure_marie_l\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1402\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1402\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1402\" title=\"Dickinson_NUDE FIGURE_MARIE_l\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_NUDE-FIGURE_MARIE_l.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_NUDE-FIGURE_MARIE_l.jpg 430w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Dickinson_NUDE-FIGURE_MARIE_l-300x258.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1402\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson, Nude Figure, Marie, 1939. Courtesy Babcock Gallery<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Goes Around Comes Around<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Why are Dickinson\u2019s six big paintings so spatially and emotionally unsettling? Is it because they simply do not fit any known style-category?<\/p>\n<p>I hypothesize that their previous popularity can be accounted for not because they seemed antimodernist, but because they are doom-ridden, anxious, nerve-wracking. There is always a market for doom. You can stand only so much Matisse.<\/p>\n<p>Antimodernism we can deal with. It is just the other side of the coin. But Dickinson\u2019s upsetting machines stand clear of the game. They are not morbid like the rotting figures of Ivan Albright. They are wreckage, if not debris. The viewer is\u00a0 flummoxed, puzzled, fascinated, transfixed, like the South Pacific trading partners of the Trobriand who were paralyzed by the ornately carved canoe prows they confronted. No normal man could have made these complicated paintings. (Yes, I have finally gotten around to reading Alfred Gell\u2019s witty, insightful, game-changing <em>Art and Agency, An Anthropological Theory<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>In the recent Dickinson literature, romantic hopes abound. He will be the new Ryder or the new Hopper, rediscovered in the nick of time and saved from unjust oblivion by an unforeseen bend in art history. Have we come to that bend?<\/p>\n<p>Can\u2019t happen. Won\u2019t make a good enough story.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his life, Dickinson loved going to the movies, beginning with the silents. Perhaps they influenced his machines and even his first strikes: tilted points of view, views from above, truncated subjects. But picture a film in which we see exact, real-time recreations of Dickinson painting, scraping down and repainting his machines indoors, the artist wrapped in coats and scarves; then intercut with the spontaneous, outdoor first strikes; then reels of him teaching class after class at Cooper Union, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Art Students League until, with the exception of the self-portraits and a few first strikes, the teaching takes over the art-making.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne learns to draw faces better by painting torsos,\u201d he tells a class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLove,\u201d he tells a stymied student, \u201cwill find an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or, my favorite, \u201cTaste is the enemy of art.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then there is the total strangeness of his most famous painting, <em>The Fossil Hunters<\/em>, which took 192 sittings. It was mistakenly exhibited sideways, not once but twice. Is this because he signed it vertically on the right side? The first time was at the 1928 Carnegie International. Corrected for an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, it was then shown sideways again and stayed that way at the National Academy of Design in New York,\u00a0 where it won the Altman Prize for Landscape. \u00a0<em>That<\/em> would be the center of my allegorical biopic.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1416\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/12\/edwin-dickinson-back-from-the-dead.html\/onside-2\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1416\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1416\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1416\" title=\"onside\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/onside1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/onside1.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/onside1-300x228.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1416\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dickinson: The Fossil Hunters.... On its side.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><strong>\u00a0Advice for Young Artists<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">1. Don\u2019t get married and have children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">2. Don\u2019t teach.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">3. Don\u2019t make more than one kind of art.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">4. Make lots and lots of product. Picasso made 40,000 artworks; Warhol clocks in<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0at 10,000, not counting prints (in some sense they are all prints). Damien<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Hirst, who has so far made only 4,800 works, not counting prints, was quoted<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0by the\u00a0 L.A. Times as determined to beat the both of them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">5. Always be able to explain what you are doing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">6. Always sign your artworks at the bottom, front or back; and indicate the top on<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the back. Never, never sign vertically down the side. That\u2019s just asking for<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0trouble.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">7. Eschew tactility, varied surfaces, paint-handling.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">8. Produce artworks that are photogenic.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">9. Never be ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">10. Don\u2019t be too original; just be original enough to make your product a brand.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Too much originality is always punished or ignored.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">_______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Fast Track:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*****\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0An Edwin Dickinson Retrospect, Babcock Gallery<\/p>\n<p>**** \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Late Works of Matta, Pace Gallery<\/p>\n<p>*** \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Diego Rivera Murals, MoMA<\/p>\n<p>** \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Francis Picabia, Michael Werner Gallery<\/p>\n<p>* \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, Brooklyn Museum<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To sample John Perreault\u2019s \u00a0sand paintings you may preview \u00a0online the Kauai Museum catalog for\u00a0<em>Mark Van Wagner and John Perreault: Drawing from Sand,\u00a0<\/em>with a short essay by art critic Peter Frank. \u00a0Click \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blurb.com\/bookstore\/detail\/2616190\">Here<\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blurb.com\/bookstore\/detail\/2556380\">.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The exhibition runs from Nov. 12 to Jan. 20 in Lihue, HI. then travels to the Lincoln Gallery, Naropa University, Boulder, CO., opening March 16.<\/p>\n<p><em>For easy access to 200 previous Artopia essays by topics, go to top bar, click on ABOUT, click on ARCHIVE, then scroll down to listing by Headlines.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>NEVER MISS AN ARTOPIA ESSAY AGAIN! FOR AN AUTOMATIC ARTOPIA ALERT contact perreault@aol.com<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>John Perreault is on Facebook. You can also follow John Perreault on Twitter: johnperreault<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>For Art Cops cartoons and other videos on Youtube: John Perreault Channel. \u00a0Main J<a href=\"http:\/\/johnperreault.com\/\">ohn Perreault \u00a0website.<\/a>\u00a0More of John Perreault\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/johnperreault.info\/home.html\">art<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Can artworks survive once they have fallen out of fashion? Or no longer inspire further art? Are off the grid? Are not part of the ongoing dialogue, but come across, if at all, as dead ends? As orphans, bachelors, old maids? Roberto Matta (1911-2002) at Pace to Jan. 28, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) at MoMA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[200,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-1351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"tag-edwin-dickinson","9":"tag-the-fossil-hunters","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}